In recent years, improvements in the performance of color printers and color image scanning devices (hereinafter referred to as color scanners) using CCDs and the like have brought about a heightened risk of unauthorized reproduction of documents, in other words counterfeiting, such as that of paper currency, negotiable securities and the like.
In order to prevent such counterfeiting, JPA 2000-307851 and JPA 2000-293691, for example, disclose a scanner driver and printer driver run by the operating software (OS), or a counterfeit prevention module run on the OS to prevent the scanning and output of an image ascertained to be one whose reproduction is prohibited.
However, a variety of types of color scanners and color printers are now available, each with its own unique resolution and color space.
As a result in the case of a color scanner or color printer provided with an anti-counterfeiting module as described above, processes for every device must be performed in the module. In other words, the scanner driver or printer driver must have anti-counterfeiting modules, each performing the same process, equal in number to the number of compatible scanners and printers, which puts pressure on the memory capacity.